Burning Out
by bookworm299
Summary: Neal's never handled grief or heartbreak well... The time between the plane exploding and Kate's funeral. And how even a broken heart can be mended.


Disclaimer: I own nothing but emotional trauma from this show...and weird headcannons

Neal turns around and his world burns to the ground behind. A getaway plane, a plan, and the women he loves. The one he gave up everything for burns to the ground. Rains down in ashes and goes up in smoke. He holds Neal back while he screams. Cries like Peter is killing, torcuring him. Like Peter was the one who ripped the world from under his feet, turned it inside-out and up-side-down. Like it was Peter who burned him out at both ends, sent him to war with himself. And it breaks Peter's heart to hear Neal plead himself hoarse. "Please, please, please, I have to save her, please" Like Peter is some monster and he kicks, struggles, and screams like it's the only thing keeping him and Kate alive. But, she's dead. He's breathing in her ashes. Neal chokes and goes silent. Not that he stopped screaming, but that he just couldn't. Because if the hope and fighting and denial broke his heart, then Neal's silence now tore it to shreds. Because it was the silence of a man who screamed himself hoarse. Who knew his fate and would walk himself to the gallows. Neal now hangs limp in Peter's arms and stares at the rements of smoke drifting in the air, like he could see Kate in the pictures it painted just for him. It takes until Peter's dragged Neal off the scene so other agents can do their jobs to realize what's so different about Neal, what's causes the worry in his heart. And it's this: the lights gone out of Neal's eyes. He's looking right at him but he's not seeing a thing. Neal's got the eyes of a man who knows he's dead, but his body just hasn't caught up yet. Peter drives Neal to the hospitale. The whole way there Neal stares unseeing at the smoke that drifts and floats and mixes with the New York air. Peter drives faster.

The doctor sees them quickly. Peter answers all the questions because all Neal seems capable of doing is blink and stare like a baby bird and cock his head to the side when someone speaks to him, like there's a fly buzzing around inside his head. What Peter is afriad of: Neal having brain damage. What Neal is diagnosed with: strained vocal cords, a congested chest full of smoke, and severe emotional trauma. Neal comes home with painkillers, sleeping pills, and instructions not to speak for a week. Neal is tense and all strung up but doesn't fight the medicine and doesn't try to speak.

Peter finds Neal the next morning at June's house surrounded by the broken glass of a wine bottle that couldn't hold all the answers and he's got blood dripping from his hands and ankle. Like he tried to shred the aklet with shards of glass. Neal comes home with Peter from the hospitale with 7 new stitches on his leg and bandages wrapped up to his elbows from his knuckles on both arms. Neal sits in the guestroom with a sketch book and color pencils and stares out the window. It's 3 days before Peter can take him back to June's and not have serious reason to believe he'll throw himself off the terace. It's been 4 days since Neal Caffery's 'devil may care' smile was replaced with a dead man's eyes. He grips his pencils like a lifeline and draws like it'll bring Kate back.

Mozzie calls Peter. Not the other way around. Peter goes over and finds Neal on the ground, chess pieces scattered and the board broke in two, hands fisted in his hair, knees drawn to his chest, mumbling "No, no, please, no" in rapid sucsustion under his breath. It takes 10 minutes to get him to breathe normally. An hour to fall asleep. One of these days Neal will either snap back to them or will fall off his ledge all together. Peter hopes it's the foremore.

It's 4 more days until Neal makes another sound.

7 until he smiles. Just a little bit.  
9 until Kate's furneral.

The day before Mozzie, Elizabeth, June and Peter lay out Neal's clothes-a suit and a blue tie-and tell him it'll be ok. Neal just says he wants to go alone, that he'll meet them there, thanks but no thanks, that he'll be fine. They don't believe him but give him space and lets him pretend they can't see him cry.

The thing about seeing Neal Caffery at the funeral is this; he doesn't look like Neal caffery. Because the man standing by the grave stone is stumbling and tripping over his words and his feet. Clad in paint splattered jeans and a black t-shirt. HIs hair a wet, glittering mess of curls falling his eyes and ears. He looks all of 19 and all alone in the world. Far to different from the man who could walk in a straight line drunk. And Neal doesn't even try to stop from letting them see it. It's just June, El, Moz, Diana, Jones, and Peter at the funeral. He doesn't need to hide. But he does lay roses and paper flowers on her grave, along with a hand-painted portrait of Kate. Neal sits on the ground and stares at the grave. There is no body to bury and no family to tell and no one there has even met Kate except for Neal so no one can say anything. And the kid starts humming under his breath a song that seems familar but they can't quite name; he sings like it holds all the secrets of the universe in barely a whisper, like he can speak to Kate with it and hear her answer in the wind. But if he can, then no one else does.

Time to lay claim to the evidence  
Fingerprints sold me out  
But our footprints washed away  
I'm guilty, but I'm safe for one more day  
Overdressed and underage (what a let down)  
"Do you really need to see an ID? "  
This is embarrassing as hell (what a let down)  
But I can cover for it so well  
When we're six feet under the stars

And, Caffery just starts laughing out of no where. But it's not a 'ha-ha thats funny' laugh. It's an 'im so pathetic look at me because the world is ending and nothing you do will stop it' laugh. Peter thinks that maybe he's finally snapped because here he is sitting on the ground in a graveyard honest-to-god laughing like his heart is breaking but he doesn't care. But somethings shifted again. Neal gets up and smiles his devil-may-care smile and looks down at his clothes and laughs all over again. It isn't uuntil their walking home that Peter sees what changed: The lights are back in his eyes. And maybe Neal figured something out, or maybe Kate's memory knocked some sense into him, or maybe he's just trying to dig his own grave beside her. But he's humming again. Neal's back to the land of the living. They'll be alright.

Caught up in the middle of a headache and a heartbreak  
Just when I thought I was clear of the mistakes,  
No, no oh oh

So tell me, tell me, tell me  
What am I to do  
I think that this life is darker than the view  
So help me, help me, help me  
Be a little more like you  
When everything is falling  
I'm gonna do the things you do

Shake it, shake it  
And we're moving again  
Been a long time coming for the working man


End file.
